


i can feel something inside me say

by openhearts



Category: Perfect Harmony (TV)
Genre: 1x13 Regionals, Episode Tag, F/M, Gen, I finally confirmed it, and then she introduces herself with her full name at the hotel desk in Regionals, good to know!!, sorry for changing ginny's name tag 4 times, wayne's dad's insta handle is GrandpaHawlings in hymnathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22423933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: "So. That was weird," Arthur starts.Title from Believe by Cher, of course
Relationships: Arthur Cochran/Ginny Hawlings
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	i can feel something inside me say

**Author's Note:**

> An episode tag for Regionals AKA a fix-it for That Improvisation...

After the performance Ginny takes her time with a white wine at the bar, laughing along with the noise around her for awhile. Arthur and Adams are the talk of the night, and also nowhere to be found amongst their little choir group, which is  _ especially _ the talk of the night. 

After the show wraps up onstage Ginny drains the rest of her second wine and slips away to the dressing room to change. There are a few performers still de-costuming, carefully packing away wigs that probably cost more than Ginny makes in tips for a month, and taking off their make-up with nicer products than her off-brand cold cream. She's just been feeling gawky and awkward since the performance tonight. Her thoughts keep lurching all over the place like a spooked horse after the interviews and the fight with Arthur and hearing her own voice through that autotune microphone which she didn't even know was a thing until tonight.

Everyone filters out eventually and it's mostly quiet, just the muffled sounds of the dwindling crowd in the bar. Ginny slumps on an empty section of counter that acts as vanity tables on one side of the room, thinking. She hears the door open and shut quietly and sighs, hoping it's no one she knows.

"So. That was weird," Arthur starts. 

Ginny doesn't look up but she can just picture it, him standing there in the dress clothes that replaced the Carnegie Hall-worthy tuxedo he'd cut up for the Halloween disaster, his hands in his pockets, watching her.

"Weird? What's weird? Oh you mean performin' Ave Maria in a drag club in this costume that I'm realizing fits much better than I'd prefer it did given that I'm borrowin' it from someone with much more equipment downstairs? Not that- I mean  _ any _ equipment downstairs, not that I have any myself, just the normal-"

"Ginny."

"Yeah I'm gonna stop."

"Of the many things wrong with that costume, fit is not one of them."

Ginny's head snaps up so fast her wig slips to one side. Casually, she pulls it all the way off so her hand covers her face, taking her time in hopes that her cheeks will stop burning sooner rather than later.

"No I mean with Adams," Arthur adds after a drawn out silence. "That . . . thing."

"She's got you speechless, we'll never hear the end of it from her now." Ginny pushes out a little huff of a laugh and raises her eyebrows down at the wig in her hands. She pets it nervously. Nervously? It's awkward, that's all. She's still coming down from the performance high-slash-nausea.

Arthur laughs too, forced and stilted.

"It just happened, you know. Heat of the moment."

"And why would I know anything about the heat of the moment, right?" Ginny asks challengingly, shaking her flattened hair back from her face.

Arthur's eyebrows climb high and then drop in confusion as he fishmouths for a moment.

"I meant she and I talked and it's all resolved. There wasn't anything to it, we both agreed it was a weird fluke. It won't affect the choir."

"Hm." Ginny hums shortly through her nose. "Well. Good. Because that would be very. Unprofessional. Of you, and not to mention Adams as . . . my boss."

Arthur eyes her more intently with each word she stumbles over. "I thought we were a family, isn't that what you said?"

"Ew no that was Jax," she shoots back in a rush.

Now Arthur raises just one eyebrow and starts to smile, just barely. He sidles a few steps closer. "Virginia are you  _ jealous _ ?"

"Don't you  _ dare _ use my full name that's not fair!"

"Why, because it gets you  _ hot _ ?" He asks teasingly, fully grinning now. 

" _ Arthur!" _

"That's totally it, you're hot for teacher, I knew it!" Arthur exclaims, nearly cackling, finally taking his hands out of his pockets only to fold his arms confidently.

"That doesn't even apply, you're not my teacher."

Arthur waves the thought away with one hand. "Teacher, conductor, I'm still an older man in a position of authority and you are  _ jealous _ that I accidentally kissed Adams instead of you."

"Oh would you stop pretending you didn't mean it!" She bursts out. "You can't  _ accidentally _ kiss someone, it's not like y'all tripped and fell on each other's mouths, this isn't some ice skatin' Hallmark movie."

Arthur's lip curls in disgust automatically. Ginny folds her arms too and glares at her feet swinging back and forth in her heels.

"You wouldn't be the first, you know." Arthur says finally. He nudges her elbow with his as he leans against the counter beside her. Ginny shoves him off sulkily and he smiles again before adjusting his stance so there's a hair more distance between them. He gazes up toward the vanity lights above the row of mirrors. "Yep. Plenty of young impressionable sopranos over the years...gazed at me like they wanted nothing more than to hold me like a fermata, all night long."

". . . Ick."

"Go with that energy, that's good," he agrees sagely before looking at her sidelong and shrugging. "I'm kidding, Ginny. You'd have to be a fool to give a second glance to a stuck-up, bitter, old dick. Shit, so would  _ Adams _ . Hence-" he nods off in the direction of wherever their little talk must have taken place, then shrugs with finality.

"You  _ are _ pretty stuck up for someone who lives on a houseboat on a lake. You can't even sail anywhere 'cept round in circles."

"Well being a houseboat it has no sails, so-"

"Stuck up."

"Exactly."

"And you say 'hence' when you're not even in a Shakespeare play."

Arthur only rolls his eyes and sighs at the ceiling.

Ginny picks at the wig thoughtfully. "I don't think I was jealous so much as...surprised. I mean that came out of  _ nowhere _ ."  _ Didn't it? _ She adds to herself, not quite sure why she's asking or if she wants to hear the answer.

"I said, it was  _ accidental _ ," Arthur sighs, almost whining. "No forethought, I just turned the wrong way and she was there and it," he gestures vaguely to finish his thought.

Ginny turns and squints at him. "What's that mean, 'the wrong way'?"

"What?" He asks back quickly.

"You said you turned  _ the wrong way _ . What," she gulps and blushes suddenly. ". . . what was the right way?"

Arthur watches his own hand flipping the end of his silk scarf around evasively until Ginny slaps it away. She waits expectantly until his eyes flick over to glance at her side-long. Ginny's eyes light up with glee and she smiles herself, leaning back a little to eye Arthur up and down.

" _Doctor_ _Cochran_ ," she gasps theatrically.

"Don't. Don't do that."

"Whyyy," she drawls teasingly, elbowing him, "does it get you  _ hot _ ?"

"Careful Virginia, a man's libel to trip and fall," he intones jokingly, raising an eyebrow and leaning sideways dangerously close, his face turned up toward hers, shoulder pressed warmly to her arm.

And Ginny doesn't lean in the rest of the way. Arthur's beard doesn't bristle against her chin. They don't each tilt just the right way.

There  _ is _ a pause that feels like it stretches way too long even though it lasts only a second, and then. Well.

That's weird.


End file.
